Review: Capital Hotel Taipei Yuyuan Chinese Restaurant

I’ve been reviewing luxury hotels my whole life, last time when I decided to try a business hotel called San Want Hotel Residences in Taipei for a change, it turned out to be an excellent hidden gem. So I started my mission to look for “good hotels that are yet to be discovered.” I’ve heard of The Capital Hotel for a while now, but I haven’t had a chance to visit them yet.

Last week, I finally took the time to check it out. Our mission of the night was to try Capital Hotel’s Yuyuan Chinese Restaurant located on the second floor of the Capital Hotel.Watch our video first:

The lobby of the Capital Hotel is bright and clean, quite the level of a star-rated hotel. The elevator is down the end of a hallway on the right. There is only one elevator, making it not as “grand” as the hotel’s Chinese name suggests.

The patio seating on the first floor that I see through the elevator’s glass windows almost made me want to turn back. I’m not sure if there’s a restaurant for that. Yuyuan Restaurant:The elevator opens on the second floor to an Oriental decor, a variety of Chinese porcelain and antique art pieces line the hallway and guide us into Yuyuan Restaurant. Upon entering is a curved sign that reads “Yuyuan Shanghai Soup Dumplings.” After entering the Yuyuan Restaurant, the main dining hall is filled with elegant and oriental style tables and chairs. There are also six to fourteen-person booths suitable for Chinese gatherings.

I’m not too familiar with Chinese cuisine, so we ordered the Yuyuan Chinese Set Menu ($1288+10% service charge) and passed the baton along with our decision –making problems all together to the restaurant. We see a lack of veggies in the set, so we ordered a Chinese baby cabbage.

豫園品饌套餐 (Yuyuan Chinese Set Menu):

The appetizer platter includes drunken chicken, vegetarian bean curd roll and bitter gourd. The dish looks delicious and diversified, but our server didn’t make any introduction when serving the food; she also had no knowledge of what she was bringing to the table when we asked.

The drunken chicken is garnished with goji. Our friend thought the chicken tasted too strong, but I loved it. It was hard to figure out what the ingredients were in the bean curd roll, our server simply replied “just some vegetarian stuff,” when we asked her. My guess is mushrooms and black fungus. The bitter gourd (bitter melon) is crisp and refreshing with a hint of plum scent, which removes the bitterness.

炒娃娃菜 (Chinese baby cabbage)

炒娃娃菜(Chinese baby cabbage)

清炒娃娃菜上面有加幾片紅蘿蔔跟菇點綴，口味清爽。

英文版/English:

Chinese baby cabbage is topped with a few slices of carrots and mushrooms, the taste is light.

The steamed dumplings look “dough over filling” with thick skin and possibly hard to chew. Once bitten down, soup squirts out the dumping (watch the video) like a real soup dumpling (xiaolongbao)! So we ask for ginger and black vinegar to take care of them as if they’re soup dumplings. The “Yuyuan Shanghai Soup Dumplings” sign upon entrance makes sense now, maybe soup dumplings are their specialty. The server was generous with the ginger, he didn’t give us the kind of frustration you usually get when you realize there’s not enough ginger in your take-out xiaolongbao or wasabi in your sushi delivery.

Pork belly meat is cooked with the ancient recipe. Unfortunately, the meat is almost 100% fat with no traces of lean meat. Dongpo Pork is served with Shanghai Style Vegetable Rice. The server recommended us to eat them together.

The waiter provided us with no information for this dish either, but this Shanghai Style Vegetable Rice seems to be mixed with bacon, mushrooms, and chopped vegetables. It is served with a hot clay pot, similar to a Korean style “stone pot bibimbap. We all know the best part of bibimbap is the rice crust. The dish was sizzling when served, but the crust never formed because the rice was too oily. We even asked for a new container to make the crust. The results remain the same.

蔥油蒸鱈魚 ( Steamed Codfi­sh with Scallions)

蔥油蒸鱈魚(Steamed Codfish with Scallions)

入口即化的嫩鱈魚，加入淡淡的蔥油香，更能提出鱈魚的清鮮，魚肉爽口易下嚥。

英文版/English:

Codfish is very tender with a touch of scallions; the dish is light and easy to finish.

Chicken soup is sweet and delicious and cooked and served with bone-in chicken meat, the meat is cooked to fall-off-the-bone tender, and the soup sweetened entirely with the chicken’s natural flavours only.

寶島四季鮮水果 (Taiwanese Seasonal Fruit)

寶島四季鮮水果(Taiwanese Seasonal Fruit)

餐後上的寶島四季鮮水果有葡萄，還有西瓜、哈密瓜、跟芭樂各一片。

英文版/English:

Taiwanese Seasonal Fruit Includes grapes, and a piece of watermelon, cantaloupe, and guava each.